Awhile back, perhaps in 2007, I discovered an exact 25-marker match on my "Ancestral Origins" page at FTDNA with a man who listed "England" as his place of origin. Since I had no such match in YSearch (my only exact 25-marker match at that time was with my second cousin Mark), and no such match on my "Y DNA Matches" page, I was puzzled. I emailed FTDNA and inquired about it.

FTDNA responded that they could not reveal who the man was but they could forward an email from me to him, if I wanted to prepare one. To make a long story short, FTDNA sent the man my email, and he answered with an email to me. I discovered that his surname is Beddoes, that he was born in Worcester, England, but that his family was from Shropshire. He was unwilling to upgrade to 37 or 67 markers at that time. Since we have different surnames, I dismissed the whole thing as a fluke that probably wouldn't hold up if upgraded anyway. Under such circumstances, I wasn't willing to pay for Mr. Beddoes' upgrade.

Then just a few months back, in the course of being the admin of the R-P312 and Subclades Project, I came to know (via the internet and email) Dave Stedman, who lives in England. I just happened to mention this whole Beddoes thing to him. Subsequently, Dave was perusing some old English parish records and found a couple that were interesting from Cardeston in Shropshire. The oldest one recorded the marriage, in 1665, of Mary Miles and Reinold Beddo. An entry from 1675 (ten years later) recorded the marriage of William Stephens to Mary Beddoe. It occurred to Dave (and to me when he shared the info with me) that the Mary Miles who married Reinold Beddo in 1665 could be the Mary Beddoe who married William Stephens in 1675. By that time she could have been Reinold Beddo's widow and may have had at least one male child who was Reinold's son. If that son took his stepfather's surname - Stephens - that could explain both my surname (Stevens) and my match with Mr. Beddoes.

Now I could see a reason to spring for Mr. Beddoes' upgrade!

So I did, first to 37 markers. I figured an upgrade from 25 to 37 markers would only cost me 49 bucks. If the thing went south, which is what I expected, I would only be out $49, not the $150 an upgrade from 25 to 67 would cost.

Well, the results came back last month. Mr. Beddoes and I are a 36/37 match. We differ by one at CDYa, where I have 38 and he has 37.

Now I am doing the upgrade to 67 markers. I figure if there is any substance to the son-of-Reinold-and-Mary scenario I described above, we will stay within a genetic distance of three at 67 markers. A gd of four would make things very iffy. More than four, in my opinion, undoes the deal.

Anyway, we'll see. Honestly, I feel a little strange about the whole thing. I'm excited on the one hand by the possibility of making a genetic connection across the Pond. But I feel strange to think that my surname might be the result of a young boy in the 17th century taking the surname of his stepfather. Then there is the sobering fact that I can only get my paper trail back to my ggg-grandfather, who was born in West Virginia (part of Virginia back then) in 1804. That leaves a gap of 139 years between the marriage of Reinold and Mary and the birth of my ggg-grandfather, and I have nothing to fill it with!

Maybe the thing will fizzle, and we'll go out to a distance of five or so at 67 markers. We'll see. After all, at 37 markers, Mr. Beddoes also matches a Webb 36/37. At 67 markers I have a 62/67 match with the cousin of that same Webb. The Webb who matches Mr. Beddoes 36/37 matches me 35/37.

I keep hearing stories of genealogical serendipity, but unfortunately have never experienced one myself. I hope this one pans out for you.As a person interested in names, I find the use of the very Germanic Reinhold as a Christian name in 17th century Shropshire highly unusual. I would have suspected an immigrant from the Low Countries, except for the very British surname Beddoe. The English version of the name is Reginald. I wonder if Reinold could be a survival of the Norman Reynauld. I conceed I have seen some very unusual Christian names in 16th and 17th century England.Dave, while you're at the serendipity business, could you turn up the origin of my 17th century English ancestor who first appears in Nottinghamshire in 1694?

I keep hearing stories of genealogical serendipity, but unfortunately have never experienced one myself. I hope this one pans out for you.As a person interested in names, I find the use of the very Germanic Reinhold as a Christian name in 17th century Shropshire highly unusual. I would have suspected an immigrant from the Low Countries, except for the very British surname Beddoe. The English version of the name is Reginald. I wonder if Reinold could be a survival of the Norman Reynauld. I conceed I have seen some very unusual Christian names in 16th and 17th century England.Dave, while you're at the serendipity business, could you turn up the origin of my 17th century English ancestor who first appears in Nottinghamshire in 1694?

Well, you know, the same thing occurred to me, and I know that many Flemish weavers settled in England and Wales in the past. I found an account on the internet of the surname Beddows or Beddoes that says "Bedo" is a nickname for the Welsh name Meredith ("Maredudd" or something like that), but it fails to site a source, and I am always a little leery of such things when they come without documentation. I have a difficult time seeing how "Bedo" could be a nickname for "Meredith," but then I don't speak Welsh.

Anyway, there are a couple of similar-sounding surnames, Bedaux and Bedeaux, that I found by experimenting with the World Names Profiler (http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/Main.aspx). Bedaux is most common in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Bedeaux is most common in France and the Netherlands.

I found something here that is interesting. It says "Bedo" was actually a Welsh Christian (first) name, so that Beddoes means "son of Bedo". In other words it is a Welsh first name that got turned into an English-version patronymic in the same way that names like Jones, Evans, Williams, etc., did.

I found something here that is interesting. It says "Bedo" was actually a Welsh Christian (first) name, so that Beddoes means "son of Bedo". In other words it is a Welsh first name that got turned into an English-version patronymic in the same way that names like Jones, Evans, Williams, etc., did.

That makes sense to me.

The reference is from Bardsley's Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames published in 1901. While he is generally considered a pioneer in the field, he is now rather out of date. The scholarly Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames (3rd revised edition) repeats the origin as Bedo, a pet form of Meredith, without further explanation. It also lists a Bedo ap Richard in Shropshire as early as 1493. So whatever its origin, it is clearly a Welsh personal name which became a patronymic surname.However the possibility that it could be an anglicization (can one say this of a Welsh name?) of a French or Dutch surname is an intriguing one.

The reference is from Bardsley's Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames published in 1901. While he is generally considered a pioneer in the field, he is now rather out of date. The scholarly Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames (3rd revised edition) repeats the origin as Bedo, a pet form of Meredith, without further explanation. It also lists a Bedo ap Richard in Shropshire as early as 1493. So whatever its origin, it is clearly a Welsh personal name which became a patronymic surname.However the possibility that it could be an anglicization (can one say this of a Welsh name?) of a French or Dutch surname is an intriguing one.

Well, it appeared to be a comment from a man named Platt on the "ap/ab Eddows" reference in Bardsley's Dictionary offering his point of view, but yeah.

Anyway, the Beddoes family in question is from Shropshire, and most of my closest haplotype neighbors seem to either come from the West Midlands or to have surnames (like Webb) that are common there. I only have one really genuine Welsh match, and that is with a number of members of the same Price family, one of whom is a gd of 7 away at 67 markers.

So, I suspect my y line ancestry is British, in the original sense of that word, or possibly Irish by way of the invaders who settled in western England and in Wales beginning in the 5th century A.D.

I found something here that is interesting. It says "Bedo" was actually a Welsh Christian (first) name, so that Beddoes means "son of Bedo". In other words it is a Welsh first name that got turned into an English-version patronymic in the same way that names like Jones, Evans, Williams, etc., did.

That makes sense to me.

Just had a chat with a friend of mine whose first language is welsh , not common around here but he comes from a little further west.

He had no idea why Bedo may have been a pet name for Meredith, and had never heard it himself (not that that means it isn't true), he did translate the name Beddoe as maybe coming from 'I am' though.

We spent about 5 minutes with him saying the name whilst I tried to work it out phonetically, BET , THOUGHT , OIL, there was also a very subtle r sound between the BE and TH which I couldn't quite get.

Of course this is how the Welsh would say the spelling, and that would have little bearing on the English around Shropshire.

Just had a chat with a friend of mine whose first language is welsh , not common around here but he comes from a little further west.

He had no idea why Bedo may have been a pet name for Meredith, and had never heard it himself (not that that means it isn't true), he did translate the name Beddoe as maybe coming from 'I am' though.

We spent about 5 minutes with him saying the name whilst I tried to work it out phonetically, BET , THOUGHT , OIL, there was also a very subtle r sound between the BE and TH which I couldn't quite get.

Of course this is how the Welsh would say the spelling, and that would have little bearing on the English around Shropshire.

Sometimes people say things that get accepted as fact even though they were simply musing about possibilities at the time.

I wonder how common the first name Reinold was in Britain back in the 17th century.

Another interesting thing, as I understand it, is that my Mr. Beddoes does not match any of the other Beddoes/Beddows in that surname project. He just matches me.

Of course, no one beside the project's admin can see the Y Results page. It's top secret apparently.

Double D is a spelling that only occurs in welsh, and produces the TH sound, also the name is found almost exclusively around the Welsh Marches.

I know what you mean about facts that are repeated so often that they become truths though, matter of fact I've been beating my head against one of these for the last eight months, time will tell, and hopefully some more DNA tests.

You do have to wonder at just how useful a DNA project that only one person gets to see really is, may be Mister Beddoe has a few truths he likes to hold close to his chest as well.

....So, I suspect my y line ancestry is British, in the original sense of that word, or possibly Irish by way of the invaders who settled in western England and in Wales beginning in the 5th century A.D.

This is just speculating on probabilities, but I've been thinking (dangerous thing at that) for a while now that R-L21* on the Island of Great Britain might very well be one of the most common sub-clades of Brythonic Celtic ancestry. Of course, it appears very heavy in Wales and at a pretty good rate across England. Even though old studies showing heavy Anglo-Saxon "invasion" gene impact in South and East England still imply a 50% or so prior-inhabitant population. There must be a lot of old "true Brits" around in England, I think.

Perhaps if there is a slight r in the name it might come from Bartholomew. The name Beatty comes from that source, the "personal name Beatie, a pet form of Bartholomew".

English: from a medieval personal name, Latin Bart(h)olomaeus, from the Aramaic patronymic bar-Talmay ‘son of Talmay’, meaning ‘having many furrows’, i.e. rich in land. This was an extremely popular personal name in Christian Europe, with innumerable vernacular derivatives. It derived its popularity from the apostle St. Bartholomew (Matthew 10:3), the patron saint of tanners, vintners, and butlers.Source: Ancestry.com

The reference is from Bardsley's Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames published in 1901. While he is generally considered a pioneer in the field, he is now rather out of date. The scholarly Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames (3rd revised edition) repeats the origin as Bedo, a pet form of Meredith, without further explanation. It also lists a Bedo ap Richard in Shropshire as early as 1493. So whatever its origin, it is clearly a Welsh personal name which became a patronymic surname.However the possibility that it could be an anglicization (can one say this of a Welsh name?) of a French or Dutch surname is an intriguing one.

Well, it appeared to be a comment from a man named Platt on the "ap/ab Eddows" reference in Bardsley's Dictionary offering his point of view, but yeah.

Anyway, the Beddoes family in question is from Shropshire, and most of my closest haplotype neighbors seem to either come from the West Midlands or to have surnames (like Webb) that are common there. I only have one really genuine Welsh match, and that is with a number of members of the same Price family, one of whom is a gd of 7 away at 67 markers.

So, I suspect my y line ancestry is British, in the original sense of that word, or possibly Irish by way of the invaders who settled in western England and in Wales beginning in the 5th century A.D.

I'm sure you checked the geography, that Shropshire includes the western border of England with Wale. This is where Offa's Dyke was built to provide some separation between Anglian territory and the wilds of Wales. It must of been the equivalent of the U.S.'s "Wild West."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa's_Dyke

Well, it appeared to be a comment from a man named Platt on the "ap/ab Eddows" reference in Bardsley's Dictionary offering his point of view

Well I was just going to post an idea that the name was a construct from ab Eddows , and decided to have a hunt around to see what the entomology of that was likely to be when I noticed you had already posted this.

Anyway I found this

The surname Eddowes is derived from Iorwerth through Edward and is found in large numbers in Montgomeryshire and quite often in Shropshire - Morgan & Morgan

This root of Beddoe is not an uncommon idea and of course follows in the tradition of Price and Bowen

There is also a river called the Eddow or Edw in Radnorshire (now Powys), again same neck of the woods.

....So, I suspect my y line ancestry is British, in the original sense of that word, or possibly Irish by way of the invaders who settled in western England and in Wales beginning in the 5th century A.D.

This is just speculating on probabilities, but I've been thinking (dangerous thing at that) for a while now that R-L21* on the Island of Great Britain might very well be one of the most common sub-clades of Brythonic Celtic ancestry. Of course, it appears very heavy in Wales and at a pretty good rate across England. Even though old studies showing heavy Anglo-Saxon "invasion" gene impact in South and East England still imply a 50% or so prior-inhabitant population. There must be a lot of old "true Brits" around in England, I think.[/size]

I think that's what I probably am, but I think things will get confusing because it seems likely there were L21+ Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans, too.

We will really have to get some young SNPs before we can narrow things down by historical tribe or ethno-linguistic group.

....So, I suspect my y line ancestry is British, in the original sense of that word, or possibly Irish by way of the invaders who settled in western England and in Wales beginning in the 5th century A.D.

This is just speculating on probabilities, but I've been thinking (dangerous thing at that) for a while now that R-L21* on the Island of Great Britain might very well be one of the most common sub-clades of Brythonic Celtic ancestry. Of course, it appears very heavy in Wales and at a pretty good rate across England. Even though old studies showing heavy Anglo-Saxon "invasion" gene impact in South and East England still imply a 50% or so prior-inhabitant population. There must be a lot of old "true Brits" around in England, I think.[/size]

I think that's what I probably am, but I think things will get confusing because it seems likely there were L21+ Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans, too.We will really have to get some young SNPs before we can narrow things down by historical tribe or ethno-linguistic group.

I agree, the recyclable nature of the peoples of NW Europe make it difficult to discern. The weight of the evidence leads me to thinking my L21+ is Brythonic, but particularly with findings of L21+ in Norway, a L21+ Viking or two could easily have had a direct impact on almost any coastal are of Ireland or Great Britain.... and of course an Norseman who went to Normandy could easily have been a Norman Invader. The Anglo-Saxon seems less likely, but that may be just that I've been flooded with the "Frisian" nomenclature for DNA that looks quite a bit different, but in truth there could be numerous types of Anglo-Saxon DNA.

L21+ does sound earlier than the historic periods, although it sounds much too late for Paleothic or Mesolithic or even the early Neolithic. I keep going back to some connection to Bell Beakers or the Hallstatt culture.

....So, I suspect my y line ancestry is British, in the original sense of that word, or possibly Irish by way of the invaders who settled in western England and in Wales beginning in the 5th century A.D.

This is just speculating on probabilities, but I've been thinking (dangerous thing at that) for a while now that R-L21* on the Island of Great Britain might very well be one of the most common sub-clades of Brythonic Celtic ancestry. Of course, it appears very heavy in Wales and at a pretty good rate across England. Even though old studies showing heavy Anglo-Saxon "invasion" gene impact in South and East England still imply a 50% or so prior-inhabitant population. There must be a lot of old "true Brits" around in England, I think.[/size]

I think that's what I probably am, but I think things will get confusing because it seems likely there were L21+ Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans, too.We will really have to get some young SNPs before we can narrow things down by historical tribe or ethno-linguistic group.

I agree, the recyclable nature of the peoples of NW Europe make it difficult to discern. The weight of the evidence leads me to thinking my L21+ is Brythonic, but particularly with findings of L21+ in Norway, a L21+ Viking or two could easily have had a direct impact on almost any coastal are of Ireland or Great Britain.... and of course an Norseman who went to Normandy could easily have been a Norman Invader. The Anglo-Saxon seems less likely, but that may be just that I've been flooded with the "Frisian" nomenclature for DNA that looks quite a bit different, but in truth there could be numerous types of Anglo-Saxon DNA.

L21+ does sound earlier than the historic periods, although it sounds much too late for Paleothic or Mesolithic or even the early Neolithic. I keep going back to some connection to Bell Beakers or the Hallstatt culture.

I think you're right when you say you've been flooded with the idea that all the Anglo-Saxons were of the so-called "Frisian" genetic type. There is no rerason to assume all the Anglo-Saxons were of the same haplogroup or subclade. L21 has been found on the North Sea coast of Germany, and I can see no reason to assume to exclude it as a component of the Anglo-Saxons..

As a person interested in names, I find the use of the very Germanic Reinhold as a Christian name in 17th century Shropshire highly unusual. I would have suspected an immigrant from the Low Countries, except for the very British surname Beddoe. The English version of the name is Reginald. I wonder if Reinold could be a survival of the Norman Reynauld. I conceed I have seen some very unusual Christian names in 16th and 17th century England.

I believe I have soved the Reinhold mystery. The name is of Germanic origin, but was adopted by the Normans as Reinald or Reynaud, latinizied at Reginald, and introduced in those forms into England. It is source of the first name Reginald and the patronymic surname Reynolds etc. According to the excellent book, The Surnames of Wales by John and Sheila Rowlands(1996), the Welsh adopted the name as Rheinallt, sometimes spelled Rynalt or Rynallt.Examples of the surname Prynallt are found in Shropshire.I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Welsh surnames.